Why Writers Should Read Launch by Mike Stelzner

September 14, 2011

One of the best books I’ve read recently is Mike Stelzner’s Launch. Even though it’s not a writing book (that is to say, it’s not about technique), it’s a book every owner of a writing business should read. In Launch Mike tells you how to launch a successful business with content. As writers, content is our business and that’s why we should read it. I defy anyone to read it without having at least one lightbulb moment.

This book captivated me as though it had been a best selling novel and I devoured it within a few hours. I know I won’t have taken everything in, so I plan to go back and reread at leisure, dipping into the sections I need as I need them.

The book is subtitled How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition and through 9 chapters, Mike uses a spacefaring analogy to show you how to do just that. He speaks of adding rocket fuel to your launch and shows how you can put the pieces together.

Launch — Chapter Listing

The chapters are:

1. Rockets Don’t Fly Themselves

2. Starting Your Mission Plan

3. Finding Inspiration by Looking Outward

4. Leveraging the Power of Other People

5. Actively Engaging Other People

6. Making Content the Fuel of Your Marketing

7. Creating and Using Primary Fuel

8. Creating and Using Nuclear Fuel

9. How to Employ Marketing

There are also five appendices with examples of primary fuel content. If you haven’t been reading Social Media Examiner, then you’ll enjoy these. A key idea of the book is the Elevation Principle — meeting your customers’ needs by helping them to solve their problems at no cost.

Why Launch Rocks

Since I’m not a natural marketer, but really enjoy writing, the way this book was set out really worked for me. It’s almost like an anti-marketing manifesto — marketing without marketing — heaven! The most useful chapters for me were chapter 5 on engagement and chapters 7 and 8 on creating and using different kinds of content — those were a real cauldron of ideas.

If you haven’t been reading Social Media Examiner, then you’ll enjoy the content samples in the appendix that Mike uses to illustrate his points.

There’s no point in reading a book like this unless it’s going to provoke change. The guidance in this book has inspired me to revamp some of my web properties and resources (this is ongoing), and I’ll be using some of the principles in my next launch.

I highly recommend Launch. I’ve known Mike for a while, since writing a few articles for Writing White Papers back in 2006 so I’ve watched him do exactly what he talks about in this book — that’s part of the reason it’s so inspiring — real advice from someone who has done it.

Grab your copy here: